Bent-Core Liquid Crystals

Bent-Core Liquid Crystals
Liquid crystals straddle the line between a conventional liquid and a solid crystal. Their unique combination of liquid- and solid-like properties allow liquid crystals to be used pervasively in electronic displays.

Within the realm of liquid crystals, there’s a subset of materials known as bent-core compounds. These chemical compounds are composed of many bent-shaped molecules. Bent-core compounds self-organize in a number of exclusive ways. Understanding the structural properties of bent-core liquid crystals helps us make further use of them.

In this research, electric field induced phase transitions are observed by X-ray scattering in certain exotic liquid crystal phases.